Ah, December. What a month.
Deadlines. Shopping lists. Family obligations. Financial concerns. Dinner parties. Anxiety. Stress. And more stress.
My favorite time of the year.
Had a moment the other day after what seemed like quite a long day. A day filled with agendas and productivity assignments. I felt like it was me vs. the clock. I started off the day concerned only with the final product. Would I be able to accomplish everything by the time the day was done?
Answer: Yes, I pulled it off. But it wasn’t pretty.
And after having my head out of whack for most the day, when it came to evening, my perspective changed. I was able to look at my day and say, ‘Ya, it was a good day.’
Now here is a serious problem.
If I can’t enjoy, or better yet, just have perspective on each aspect of my day, then something is most definitely wrong.
Lifestyle habits are strong and we can fall back into unhealthy ones so easily. Maintaining perspective is the key. When our focus lack external backdrops, aka perspective, we become engrossed with what isn’t, instead of with what is.
Habits and patterns make up the majority of our day. They don’t require thinking on the most part. We just go into autopilot and act in ways that reinforce behaviors we’ve done for years. Even worse, we accept these self-destructive techniques only because they seem too difficult to overcome.
For me, December is peak season. But this can be a theme in any arena. Workouts, conversations, eating, chores, etc. Point is, are we with these moments, or are we powering through them so they can be checked off our list? Are we living our lives with the goal of completing a list?
This is the time of year where practitioners get lazy. It’s when healthy concepts become back-burner. Time to sort out shopping lists and get togethers. Somehow the holidays flip our worlds upside down and we aren’t able to really appreciate them until they are all over. We live our lives as if it were a race, not being able to enjoy anything until we win.
The victory lap.